


it was red.

by ssolicity (buchanstan)



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drabble Collection, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-21 15:33:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3697577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buchanstan/pseuds/ssolicity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a collection of some Olicity fluff that I've written. (Aka how many different scenarios can I think of for the Olicity first meeting?)</p><p>If you comment or leave kudos I might love you forever. (And if you comment saying you want a sequel to something, I'll do it if I can think of something!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. New Neighbors

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, Felicity is really irritated that her new upstairs neighbor won’t stop vacuuming at three in the morning.

Amazing. It was three in the morning, and Felicity couldn’t sleep. Not because she was stressed about her midterm the next morning, which, by the way, was the reason she stayed up and drank about four cups of coffee so she wouldn’t fall asleep while studying computer codes that were both harder and more boring than anything she had ever learned. And it definitely wasn’t the four cups of coffee.

No, it was the incessant noise of the vacuum that had been going on for at least the past half hour. Felicity glared daggers up at the ceiling, hoping somehow the message would be transferred telepathically to the guy who had just moved into the apartment above hers last week. She had breathed a sigh of relief when the last renters moved out; while they were lovely people, they had a six-month old baby that woke her up almost every other night, and she had thought that for sure it couldn’t get any worse. She was wrong.

“You’re worse than a baby. You’re literally worse than a baby. For what godly reason could you possibly need to be vacuuming at three in the morning?” she muttered to herself. She groaned and turned over to face the window, where a nice breeze was coming in. At least there’s that. Exasperated, she called out: “Seriously, what reason could you possibly have for late night vacuuming? Did you spill your box of cocoa puffs? Did a bird poop on your floor? Did you kill someone and have to dispose of the evidence? Oh, god, I just want to sleep so I don’t fail my test tomorrow because if I fail out of this class then I’ll probably fail out of MIT or lose my scholarship or something and then where would I be? Back in Vegas, and I really don’t think I can tell my mom that I failed school because I couldn’t sleep because the asshole who lives above me decided that three in the morning the day before my computer programming test was a perfect time to vacuum his floors and ruin my life.”

Silence.

Wait, silence? Sometime in her long spiel of frustration, the guy finally decided that three AM was not an ideal time to use his extremely loud vacuum. Felicity heaved a sigh of relief and closed her eyes, ready to make another valiant effort to get some sleep.

“Um… I’m sorry?” A voice came hesitantly from above her.

Felicity, startled, sat upright in her bed. Could the man hear everything she was saying? Oh, god, why did she leave the window open?

The guy cleared his throat. “I’ll stop now. Good night, I guess, new neighbor.”

Mortified, Felicity flopped back down into her bed and pulled the covers over her head.

“Good luck on your test tomorrow.”

 

The following evening, Felicity was lounging on her couch, watching old episodes of Doctor Who, when she heard a knock on her door. She padded over to the door in her panda slippers and opened the door.

A man stood at her doorway with a half smile and a slightly nervous look on his face. Oh, and he was holding flowers, which he promptly held out to her.

“I thought that we maybe got off on the wrong foot last night. My name is Oliver, and I believe I’m your asshole neighbor who was vacuuming last night.” He raised an eyebrow, ever so slightly, when Felicity just stared at him in shock. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. And I hope you like lilies.”

“O… kay,” Felicity managed. “I’m Felicity. And I should probably say, I’m not usually like that. Okay, well maybe I am. But still, it was three in the morning and I probably had way too much coffee anyway but I probably shouldn’t have called you an asshole. Not that I knew you could hear me. Oh god.” She stopped herself before her brain-to-mouth filter, or lack thereof, could embarrass her even further.

The guy - Oliver - only chuckled at her and placed the flowers in her hands. “Okay, Felicity. I hope I’ll see you around.” He winked and walked away with his hands shoved in his pockets. It was only after he was gone that Felicity remembered to move and actually close the door.

“Bye.”


	2. Felicity Smoak: IT Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity has a work-study job at the MIT Information Systems Tech office. Some guy walks in as she’s about to close her shift… I wonder who that could be.

It was a normal Tuesday night at the MIT IST department. A bit slow, actually. Since that guy who came in at about five o’clock with a computer virus that he swore wasn’t from a porn site - not that Felicity would really care - there had barely been any activity, aside from the sound of Felicity’s co-workers typing away at their desks. In fact, she was just about to get ready to head out, with only five minutes left on her shift, so she could make it to her “Hacktivists” club meeting on time. She was pulling her backpack out from under her desk when she heard someone clear his throat from in front of her desk.

“Hi. Felicity Smoak?” the guy said with a charming smile, reading off of her name tag. “I’m having some problems with my student login, and I was hoping you could help me.”

Apparently, Felicity wouldn’t be making it to the meeting on time. She put on her best customer service smile and said, “What appears to be the problem?”

“Well, I was trying to do my assignment for tonight, but I can’t log in to my student account. It keeps saying the password is wrong.”

Felicity suppressed a sigh. More than ten people that day had showed up with that exact same problem, and she knew why. “Did you happen to get any of the three emails saying that if you didn’t change your password by yesterday, then you would get locked out and your account would possibly be deactivated?”

The guy’s eyes widened. (They were really blue, not that Felicity noticed at all.) “Oh, crap, I completely forgot about that. Um… is there any way that my account could not be deactivated? I kinda have this important assignment due in about an hour and I think I need my login to submit it.”

Felicity opened her laptop and pulled up the WebSIS (MIT’s student information portal) page. “That shouldn’t be a problem. What’s your name and student ID number?”

“Oliver Queen. OJQ52.” He waited as Felicity typed in his information.

“Just put in your new password here, Mr. Queen.” Felicity turned her laptop around so that it faced him. 

He bent down to type it in and said, “No, Mr. Queen is my father. Please, call me Oliver.”

“Okay… Oliver. You’re all set. Is that all you’ll be needing tonight?”

He leaned in even closer, and Felicity could feel her heart almost jumping out of her chest. Which was ridiculous, of course, because this guy was so not her type and why was she even thinking about that? 

“Actually, there was something else… Could you take a look at my phone?” Oliver pulled out his phone, put in his passcode, and handed it to her.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Well, I think it’s missing something.” He raised his eyebrows and gave her a cheeky smile. “Your number.”

“I… what? I mean, well, you want, um…” Felicity stammered. She took a deep breath to collect herself. “That is probably the worst pick up line I have ever heard. In my life. Although, I haven’t really heard that many. But still, this one has got to take the cake.” She shoved the phone back into his hands and stood up, grabbing her backpack. She made to walk past him. “Seriously, now. Oliver.”

“I am being serious. Felicity.” He stepped right in front of her, and she came to a sudden stop. Right against his chest. “Let me try this again. Would you possibly be interested in going to dinner with me?”


	3. Just Your Typical Frat Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sara drags her roommate Felicity to a frat party. Cue nonsense.

Felicity had no idea how she ended up here. Of all people, she was probably the least likely to spend time in the basement of a frat house on a Friday night. The music was really loud, there were so many people that her glasses were fogging up, and she was pretty sure that someone just spilled half a can of beer on her.

Actually, she knew exactly how she ended up here. It was all her roommate Sara’s fault, and she was never going to forgive her. Sara was always saying how Felicity should get out more, weekends aren’t just for catching up on homework and Doctor Who, and there were cute boys whom she could be talking to instead of her engineering TA (who, she thought, was kinda cute in his own right). 

Now that she’s here, in the house of a frat whose name she couldn’t for the life of her remember, she can’t imagine that she ever agreed to this experience. Holding a cup of mysterious liquid (Sara said it was coke and rum, or something like that), Felicity watched as her roommate danced with a boy a few feet away. Sara had insisted that they stick together that night, because “boys are not to be trusted and you’re too cute and innocent to be at a frat party by yourself.” While Felicity appreciated the sentiment, she wasn’t sure that watching her roommate dance all night was exactly her idea of fun.

Someone suddenly appeared at Felicity's side and said, “Hi. I’m Carter. Do you want to get a drink with me?”

She turned around to face him, and was wholly unimpressed. He was obviously a few drinks in, and while he was conventionally pretty attractive, he had a bit of a sleazy look that Felicity was really not into.

“No, thanks, I already have one.” She held her red solo cup up to him, the liquid still sloshing around because she had drunk almost none of it.

“Well then, do you want to dance?” He grinned at her expectantly and started to guide her closer into the throng of people.

“No, I’m really fine, thanks,” Felicity said, backing away. She glanced over at Sara, who was starting to look a bit concerned, but Felicity shook her head at her, indicating that everything was fine. Felicity didn’t want to ruin Sara’s fun for the night, and besides, she could take care of this herself.

“Felicity, hi!” She heard from behind her. Felicity turned around and found herself staring up at Oliver Queen. He glanced at her, and then gave Carter a piercing look. “I don’t think she’s interested, bro.” 

Carter made a disbelieving noise, and then shook his head. “Whatever, man,” he said, walking away.

Felicity furrowed her eyebrows at Oliver Queen. She knew who he was, simply because he was in her math class, and besides, who didn’t know who Oliver Queen was? He was probably the most famous (or rather, infamous) frat boy to ever walk the halls of Starling City University. But that didn’t explain how he knew her name. Did he seriously remember who she was from the introductions the first day of class?

“Thanks, but I could handle that myself, you know. I know you’re all big and strong and whatever, but that was really pretty unnecessary and I don’t need a savior. Especially not Oliver Queen. Not that there’s anything wrong with… you know…” Apparently, the trace amounts of alcohol that she drank did not help with the whole babbling thing. “Three… two… one… How do you even remember my name?”

Oliver smiled at her, amused. “How could I forget?” he said. The music was so loud, she could barely hear him. He leaned closer and said into her ear, “You’re kinda hard to forget.”

She stared right back at him. Maybe she wouldn’t be so angry with Sara for making her come after all.


	4. Didn't See You There

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver Queen is trying to lose the paparazzi, and in his haste, doesn’t realize that he just got into an already occupied taxi.

“Mr. Queen! What can you tell us about your next project?”

“Oliver, you’ve been in the press lately for-”

Oliver turned his face away from the camera and resisted the urge to shove it in the paparazzo’s face. It was slightly drizzling, making it a truly gloomy day in LA. In fact, he would probably admire these paparazzi’s dedication if they weren’t annoying him so much. He hurried along the sidewalk, scanning the street for any potential escape routes. Why, oh why, didn’t he listen to his manager and actually take his bodyguard with him for once?

He turned the corner, and saw a yellow taxi cab that was idling by the curb. Maybe it was his lucky day, after all. 

“Sorry, I really need to get going,” he said to the two men who had been trailing him with flashing cameras for the past three blocks. (He wasn’t actually sorry at all, but they didn’t need to know that.) He yanked the car door open and slid in, heaving a sigh of relief that there was now a door in between him and the cameras.

“Um, hi?” someone said hesitantly from across the backseat. Oliver jumped, startled.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize there was someone in here. I just didn’t really want to be in Entertainment Weekly’s newscast for tomorrow.” Now looking at the girl who was sitting there, he didn’t know what to think of her. She was wearing a bright pink lipstick to go with her deep red dress, which he was now realizing looked really good on her, even sitting down... and he should probably stop staring.

“That’s okay. They’re.... Wait, are you Oliver Queen?” The girl gasped, and her bright pink lips made an adorable O shape as she put the pieces together. “Oh my god, you are. You were in that movie that Sara dragged me to go see last week. She’s like, obsessed with you, and wow, she would totally kill if she found out that this was happening. Which she will, because, you know, I’ll tell her. You’re her favorite actor, and you look even better in person than on screen, and I can’t believe I just said that out loud.”

Oliver chuckled at her, deciding that while a little babbly, she was probably harmless. He held his hand out to her so that she could shake it. “Oliver Queen. And you are... ?”

“Felicity Smoak.”

“Well, Felicity, do you think we could maybe get going?” The two paparazzi were still standing outside of the taxi cab, which remained at the curb.

“Yes! Of course.” Leaning forwards, she told the taxi driver (who had a bit of an amused look on his face): “I’m going to the club Verdant. Do you know where it is?”

The taxi driver nodded amiably and pulled away from the curb.

Oliver looked at her, bemused. “Verdant? I’ve been there before... a lot, actually. And, um...”

“Yeah, it’s not really my scene,” she interrupted, seeing where this was going. “But I promised Sara that I’d meet her there tonight and she really hates it when I skip out on what she calls ‘girls’ night’, which is coincidentally what I call ‘my night of bad decisions’. Which basically involves a lot of drinking and grinding on random guys. Last time, when I stayed home to watch a movie and drink red wine, she told me that if I ever skipped out again, I’d have to have a really good reason. Like, a my-house-burned-down reason or something like that. I mean, I live in an apartment, so I guess it would be a my-apartment-building-burned-down reason.” She paused to take a breath.

“I can think of another reason, if you’re interested.”

“And what would that be?”

“You could tell her that you’re having dinner with Oliver Queen. What would she say to that?”

Felicity gaped at him. “Was that your subtle way of asking me to dinner? Like, on a date?”

“Not so subtle. Would you like to have dinner with me, Felicity? And, it’s only a date if you want it to be.”

“You mean, would I like to avoid loud music and drunk guys for a night? Hell yes, you can sign me up for that.”

 

The next morning, Oliver Queen did, in fact, show up on Entertainment Weekly’s celeb newscast. Fortunately, he found that he didn’t really mind. Everyone was left wondering about the mysterious woman that Oliver Queen had a late night dinner with. Of course, Sara Lance got an exclusive story from one Felicity Smoak about how she happened upon Oliver Queen, who gave her the best dinner (and non-date) of her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Wednesday (aka day we're supposed to have Arrow, except the CW loves to torture us with breaks). Hope you enjoyed!


	5. À une passante

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apparently, a smile can lead to a dinner date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on a short story I read for my French class last week (Petits Pratiques Germanopratines), which is based on the Baudelaire poem À une passante. Incredibly cheesy and dumb. I’m not sure what happened. You have been warned.

Felicity walked down the street, her heels clacking satisfyingly on the pavement. She was on her lunch break, and she had about an hour to go to her favorite sandwich shop on the corner of Madison and Fifty-Seventh and pick up her lunch. Maybe afterwards, she’ll go to Central Park to eat her sandwich and enjoy the surprisingly nice April weather. 

Still thinking about her sandwich, she gazed forward, noticing a man walking in the opposite direction approaching her. She could see his eyes following her, and as they passed by each other, he smiled and inclined his head. She offered him a small smile in return. They walked away from each other, and she couldn’t help but feel a small sense of disappointment. The man was so attractive, he was enchanting, almost. But she wasn’t about to stop a stranger on the street like oh hey, I thought you were super hot, wanna make out?

Apparently, he would. She could hear a voice calling to her, and she turned to face him.

“Pardon. I was wondering, would you want to get dinner with me tonight?”

She raised her eyebrows, incredulous that this was even happening to her. Her life wasn’t typically a rom com.

“That’s a bit rash, don’t you think? I mean, I don’t even know you.”

“That may be true, but I saw you smile at me on the street, and I knew it would be a shame to just pass by.” He pauses for a moment. “That sounded less lame in my head, but let’s just go with it. Maybe it’s fate. What do you say?”

She considers it for a moment. “Give me one reason to say yes.”

“I am an incredibly good kisser. And I’m not bad at conversation, either.”

Hell, why not? She might as well do something spontaneous for once. 

“Yes.”


	6. Of All the Bad Choices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity’s douchebag boyfriend just broke up with her and she spent the night drinking her troubles away. Mostly random babbles, no smut (sorry).

She knew it was a bad idea. She knew it was a really, really, bad idea, a terrible idea, even, but she’d had a few shots of tequila that night and tequila makes everything seem like a good idea. Somehow, she found herself outside of a strip club called Verdant. The green light filtered out from the doorway—Ha, verdant, means green, I get it. She had been trying to decide whether to go inside for the past ten minutes, and at this point her feet were hurting so much in her high heels that she was highly considering going in just to sit down.

“You know, forget this, I’m just gonna do it,” she says determinedly. She looks around for a minute and sighs. “I should probably stop talking to myself outside of a shady strip club. And… I’m still doing it. Why am I still doing it?”

With that, she walks toward the club and yanks the door open. It’s heavier than she thought, and she stumbles as she walks in.

“Whoa, hey, you okay?” A man appeared behind her, catching her elbow to steady her. She squints at his nametag, but it’s too blurry for her alcohol-saturated brain to make out.

“Yes. I mean, no, unless you count my boyfriend breaking up with me and me getting drunk for like the first time in five years okay.” She pauses for a minute and groans. “I drank tequila… I don’t even remember the last time I drank tequila. Clearly it makes this babbling thing even worse, because now I’ve spilled my whole life story to a guy who clearly doesn’t care.”

The man lets out a short laugh and gives her an incredulous look. “Okay… so what can I do for you today, miss? Would you like to get a private room, or just watch the show from here?” He gestures to the stage behind him.

“I think I’m fine with…” She hesitates for a second, and then plows forward. “You know what? I’ll get a private room. Might as well live a little, now that I’m here.” She lets out a nervous laugh and hopes that she looks somewhat convincing.

“You’re quite right. What are you into?”

“What?”

“Boys, girls, I don’t know… some people have specific fantasies they want-”

“Okay!” she interrupted. “A guy… I guess?”

“Follow me, then,” the man said, giving her a bored look.

He turned around and walked straight through the club, glancing backwards a few times to make sure she was still following him and hadn’t fallen on her face yet. Reaching the back of the room, he opens the door to a dimly lit hallway; well, the whole club was dimly lit, but this hallway was particularly dim. Yeah.

They walked past a few doors before the man stopped at an unmarked door and rapped on it twice. After a moment, the door opened and the man left, leaving Felicity staring into a pair of very blue eyes.


	7. Wait, You're Not Barry...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beginning of freshman year. Felicity needs help lofting her bed.

“Ouch!” Felicity yelped, frustrated. She had spent the past half hour trying to figure out how to organize her new room so that it didn’t look _quite_ so much like a tiny, crammed prison cell. Damn college and all the upperclassmen choosing the good rooms. 

It was her second day there, and for some reason she found herself trying to move around all the furniture in her room. Her roommate had run out a few hours ago, saying she was going to have some “sister bonding time” or something, and left Felicity her blessing to do whatever she wanted to the room. Now, Felicity was really starting to regret taking on this task. While the room looked really cramped and dreary before, it now looked like a tornado had gone through it. Her table, which she had piled all of her stuff on before, was now in the middle of the room, with papers from move-in day strewn on the ground. A chair was turned over, because she had tripped over it when she was trying to push her roommate’s table against the wall.

Her phone beeped, and Sara’s number popped up.  
_hey, felicity, i’ll probs head back soon!! cant wait to see what you’re doing with the room :)_

Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit. She couldn’t let Sara see the room in this state. What a great first impression of your freshman year roommate, walking into this disaster zone. What was she going to do?

“Okay, it’s gonna be fine.” Felicity took a deep breath and surveyed the entire room warily. “Maybe… maybe if I lofted my bed, then I could put all this under it… and it’ll be fine! It’ll be fine.” 

Now, how was she supposed to loft her bed? Maybe she could ask that guy she met last night at the floor meeting… What was his name? Bart? Benny? “Barry!” she blurted out. Yeah, that’s definitely it. She was like 52% sure, which quite frankly was good enough. He had said that he lived in room 305, which she remembered without hesitation. (She was good at numbers, okay?) She grabbed her phone, shooting Sara a quick text ( _sounds good, see you soon_ ) and heading over to room 305.

Knocking on the door, she called, “Barry? It’s Felicity. I know we don’t really know each other but we kinda met last night and I need some help. It’s possible that I tried to reorganize my room and now it looks like a tornado went through it and my roommate’s gonna be back really soon so do you know how to loft a bed?” She paused. Maybe he wasn’t even in there? “Barry?”

She was about to knock again when the door opened, and the guy who stood in the doorway definitely was not the same guy that she met last night. Well, they only talked for about ten minutes, so she wasn’t that sure, but she was like 95% sure this wasn’t him. This guy was definitely taller, and a bit more… you know what? Not important. “Um. You’re not Barry.”

The guy chuckled. “No, I’m not. That’s my roommate, and he actually went out… somewhere… something about a science fair, or something, I don’t really know. He seemed really excited, though.” He peered at Felicity, who was starting to feel a bit self-conscious in her panda slippers. “I can help you loft your bed, though, if you want?”

“Oh! Okay, sure, that would be really nice. I was starting to get really hot- I mean, not because of you! Not that… I just mean, heavy lifting isn’t really my thing, and this dorm is so old I’m pretty sure there’s no AC so I’ve been sweating like a pig. Not that pigs even sweat, right, so it doesn’t really make that much sense… and you don’t care. Anyway. Any help would be appreciated. A lot. Um.”

The guy gave her a genuine smile, clearly trying to hold back his amusement. “I’d be happy to help. I’m Oliver, by the way,” he said, pulling his door closed behind him and following Felicity down the hall.

“Felicity,” she said, pointing to her own chest. They came to a stop in front of her room, and she put her hand on the door handle before turning back to Oliver. “It’s really bad in here. Please don’t trip and die, I don’t want to get sued or anything… You have been warned.”

Oliver chuckled again, and followed her in.

 

When Sara came in, Felicity and Oliver were sitting on the ground, chatting. The room was perfect, of course. (Okay, well maybe not _perfect_ perfect, but certainly good enough. It no longer looked like the victim of a natural disaster, that was for sure.) And a few hours later, Barry peeked his head in through the open door and joined them, enthusiastically detailing to all of them, but mainly Felicity, how great the astronomy talk was.


End file.
